This invention relates to the field of retail marketing and in particular to an electronic, product promotional device. The product promotional device of this invention is a shelf-mounted display sign with a mechanical shelf clip connected to a vertical battery canister that has a bracket with a flexible flap that provides a signboard for an advertisement or product promotion. The canister includes one or more lights to attract a shopper's attention and preferably includes circuitry for the preferred embodiment as a trigger unit for a shopping cart display.
In stores where there is volume retail marketing, particularly supermarkets, product advertising and promotions inside the stores have proliferated. Because of the large number of available products, the use of available floor space is optimized by the installation of long shelf structures separated by aisles. Shoppers meander along the aisles with shopping carts and shopping baskets, stopping to peruse and select products. The aisles must therefore be wide enough to accommodate passing shoppers and carts, allowing room for shoppers to turn around and reverse direction.
For example, in the patent of Begum, U.S. Pat. No. 5,703,564, issued Dec. 30, 1997, a suspended advertising and promotional display is supported by a wand mounted to the top of a shelf unit in a store. The unit combines motion in a revolving cylindrical signboard with lights to attract a customer's attention.
In store advertising and product promotion must be tailored to the design and layout of the store without interfering with the ordinary traffic of shoppers and their carts or baskets. Space at the ends of the shelf structures are usually occupied by special product displays. Signboards and other marketing devices are often suspended from the ceiling, mounted on walls or positioned on top of the shelf structures.
The free standing shelf structures or gondolas, as they are known in the industry, frequently include a track along the front edge of each shelf for mounting price cards and product specific information. With most of the other available locations for product advertising and promotion utilized, marketing specialists have begun to mount advertising and promotional devices to the shelf track. To attract the shopper's attention, many of these devices project perpendicularly into the aisle space. Such devices include coupon dispensers, lighted signboards and other attention seeking marketing devices similar to the merchandising display of Reynolds in U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,606 issued, May 12, 1992. Because the displays project from the shelf track into the aisle space, such devices are subject to inadvertent contact by shoppers. In the referenced patent, a signboard or advertising card is contained in a rigid frame on which are mounted perimeter lights. The frame has a resilient tab that is connected to a track mount. The track mount contains a battery to provide power supply to the lights on the frame. Since display cards are inserted through a slot on the tab side of the frame, the device must be removed from the shelf when changing cards. Additionally, the use of a flexible tab with internal wires provides a weak link in the structure that may be subject to failure or result in fatigue breakage of the wires. Furthermore, the rigid frame may appear more imposing to shoppers, creating an apprehension that they may damage the structure if inadvertently contacted, since the flexible connection is hidden from view. Finally, the complexity of the display adds unnecessary expense to what is a relatively simple advertising device where a number of such devices may be strategically dispensed throughout the retail establishment.
These and other deficiencies in the prior art devices inspired the simple display device of this invention, which can be utilized as a simple signboard display, or a combination signboard display and triggering unit for a shopping cart display as described in the specification that follows.